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Alright so I'm really wanting to give this castellans of the imperium detachment a try.

I have a very large for of imperial guard and can play almost any play style.

No as for marines in the formation I'm looking to add black templars but am unsure of how I should run them.

If I had to take an hq for black templars what is a pretty solid choice?

I'm not sure what units would make best use of the hatred that the detachment gives, as well as troops that die come back on a 5+.

Any suggestions on some options to include black templars in with the guard?

One of the stronger options for BT is MSU special + heavy weapon spam (read: lasplas). That is as unfluffy as it gets for templars though.
Dedicated LRC respawning on a 5+ seems legit.
Then there's black tide. 10 initiates, 10 neophytes, season with special and melee weapons, cut numbers to fit into a LRC. Not meta, but it's got the looks and style

For HQ you basically choose between a marshal (chapter master profile) to tank or an EC to challenge the crap out of everyone.
Usually chaplains to buff large squads but i'm not sure whether the formation's rules and the chaplain's aren't redundant. Also techmarines when you run multiple LRCs

The detachment itself only grants hatred and troops respawn on a 5+.

I'm more so trying to go for a fluffy aspect for the templars and have only just begun reading up on them.

I did have the idea of a big squad in a crusader to go at the opponent. In that case would you just want to equip all the dudes with bolt pistols and chain swords then?

What loadout is usually preferred for the marshal? Depending on their respective loadoats I'm just up in the air between him and the EC. But I'm more so interested in the EC.

Just a quick note - the marine forces don't have to be BT, they can be any faction (ie. one that isn't terrible). If you want a fluffy BT force though, 10 initiates, 5 sword brothers and an EC in a crusader is about as fluffy as it gets.

 Drasius wrote:
Just a quick note - the marine forces don't have to be BT, they can be any faction (ie. one that isn't terrible). If you want a fluffy BT force though, 10 initiates, 5 sword brothers and an EC in a crusader is about as fluffy as it gets.

Oh yes any would work from codex marines I was just looking to do something fluffy/fun/and different.

Only issue I see with above is that a crusader squad can only take 1 sword brother, are you talking about neophytes?


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Also I'm trying to decide between a captain(marshal) or an EC. I could give the captain artificer armor to make him a 2+ 4++ like the EC. Then I could pay 30pts to give him the ecclesiarchy relic "bladeof the worthy" from gathering storm. It's user strength and ap3 but at the beginning of fight phase he takes LD test and if passed gets +2s and ap2. So it's 140 for EC or 140 for captain with arty armor and blade of worthy. Captain has 1 more attack and wound where the EC rerolls to hit in challenge and 6's to wound cause instant death. Which does everyone think is better? Or are there better suggestions?

Any other suggestions?

Yes, neophytes, apologies for the brainfart.

As for suggestions, I think that you'll find that BT are basically dead as far as the competative scene goes since librarians are where it's at and not only are BT's forbidden from taking them, their chapter tactics are pretty bad to boot. The only real reason to take BT's over literally anything else is ObSec Land Raiders, but the number of lists that can't deal with 'Raiders rapidly approaches zero in modern armies, so again, there's not much call to play BT instead of something good instead, especially when they can't even take their only unique units outside of HQ's in a gladius, putting them yet another step behind the other vanilla chapters.

Basically, just make a fluffy army to fight other fluffy armies and leave the competative stuff to another list and you should be fine.

As for EC vs captain - Do you face things that are succeptable to ID and can be forced to challenge? If yes, EC, if no, captain. Keep in mind that the extra wound won't mean much in many combats where str8 ap2 means your captain is saving on 4's or he's going splat. If you're going castellans, you have 4 HQ slots, you could always just take both...

Thanks for the suggestions!

And yea more than likely I will be using the black templars more for fun games and will probably rarely take them competitively.

If anything they will be painted up as black templars but use chapter tactics of other armies.

The decision between the captain and the EC is that he will be a fun hq to go and try and beat down other characters of equal or less strength so I was normally drawn to the EC. But for the same points I could get a captain with slightly better stat line but without the instant death.

I will more than likely use them in the castellans detachment. The core of it right now is a crusader squad with pistols and chainswords, with the captain listed above in a LRC. The rest of my army will be my Astra militarum. The idea will be to have my guard be the brunt of the force with blobs or mech forces holding the line with big guns in support. The black templars will aim to hit a week flank to disrupt the enemy. As time goes on if I manage to get more marines I'm thinking of 2 more 5 man crusader squads in razor backs that will help escort the land raider and act as support for the bigger squad. The 5 man teams will be kitted with grav gun and cannon.

That will be my idea strategy to play the castellans detachment.

For a fluffy BT you could run 3 LRC with extra armour maxed with CC crusaders (8 Ini 8 Neo) min/max will be 1356, ideally with a Meltagun and PW.
Or just have 4 20 Man squads on foot with Neophytes up front, 240pts each.
Give the heavy support to your other faction, 3 Thunderfire Cannons or an Imperial Knight crusader, with 3 LRC and 1 Knight your opponent will have issues picking a priority target.

Also Helbrecht is a must especially if you get to sync your charge and EC is always fun to me.

I will certainly have to give that a try! Right now since I'm starting small I'm going to do a 15man squad of initiates/neophytes kitted for close combat. Then I will have either a beat stick captain or an EC to ride with them.

My other army I have which will be the primary will be my Astra militarum. I have enough armor and foot soldiers to run either way. I could spam av14 leman russes with lots of bodies which is what I tend to do. Then I will use this black templar force to hit my opponents flanks or weak spots.

If I like how this LRC unit does I will probably add more.

Is there any preference as to the ratio of initiates to neophytes? To explain more, should I have an equal number of both or should max the initiates to 10 before I start adding neophytes?

Thanks for the help and suggestions again!